Sermon Cloud

How do you want to be remembered? What kind of a mark do you want to leave with your life? I started asking myself those questions this week. What will be my legacy? What will people say about me when I’m gone? I wrote these words in my prayer journal: "What will they say about me? That he loved Jesus, that he lived for His glory, that he was full of grace and truth, that he was merciful and kind. I want to be remembered as a loving Father, a devoted husband and a good friend."

I don’t think I’m the only one who feels this way. My guess is that if I sat down with you over a cup of coffee, you’d share something similar. And the reason I say this is that there’s a part of what makes us tick, that makes us exist: Everybody wants to be a better person

Do you remember the monster.com commercial of about five years ago? Kids came on the screen saying stuff like, “When I grow up I want file all day” “I want to climb my way up to middle management.” “I want to be a yes man, yes woman,” “I want to be under appreciated,” “I want to be paid less for doing the same job.” That add struck a cord in us. We don’t want to stay the same, we don’t just want better jobs, or better lives. Everybody wants to be a better person. And you’d think that becoming a better person is something God would want as well. But as we move forward in this series on What Makes Us Tick: "Why we exist as a people of God" As we look into this whole topic of who we are becoming, about maturity, character, spiritual growth – I would say this, God does not want you to be a better person… God wants you to be a new kind of person! Listen to how Eugene Peterson translates this idea in the letter to the Ephesians. He’s talking about how living the Christian life is not about reforming the old life and making it better, but getting rid of it, and starting with a who new way of life:

Since, then, we do not have the excuse of ignorance, everything—and I do mean everything—connected with that old way of life has to go. It's rotten through and through. Get rid of it! And then take on an entirely new way of life—a God-fashioned life, a life renewed from the inside and working itself into your conduct as God accurately reproduces his character in you. Ephesians 4:21-24

In other words, God doesn’t want us to make ourselves better people. He wants to be the one who shapes His character in us: To change us from the inside out. To build his character, his nature, his qualities, in us. The Bible says it another way:

God wants you to become like His Son:
God knew what he was doing from the very beginning. (this was His plan before He ever created us) He decided from the outset to shape the lives of those who love him along the same lines as the life of his Son. The Son stands first in the line of humanity he restored. We see the original and intended shape of our lives there in him. Romans 8:29

God does not want us to make ourselves better people, He wants to form the life, the disposition and character of Christ in us. That’s one of our priorities as a people of God. One of the things that makes us tick as a church is that we would be about equipping people for maturity – preparing people to become more and more like Jesus – so that when people look at your life they will see and know that you are totally different from everyone else, because when they see you, something of Jesus shines through. So the question I really want us to unpack a bit this morning is this: What does a God-shaped life look like? If we gave God free reign to reinvent our inner person, to transform our character, to form Christ in us – what would He want to see in us? Well, there’s lots of Scripture we could look at, but we’re going to look at one verse from the Old Testament. Because here we are told by God what He wants to see in and through our lives: He has shown you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8 So let’s dive in and unpack this a bit and then ask ourselves what this might look like if we let God have His way in us:

1. A God-shaped Life Acts justly
As God shapes your character you will become a person who does the right thing. Justice is about treating people right and doing the right thing regardless of our circumstances. Justice is about dealing honestly and fairly with people and things. Listen to what God’s word says about justice. First of all it’s part of God’s character. Justice is who God is: Psalm 89:14 says, “Righteousness and justice are the foundation of Your throne.” Psalm 111:7 says, “All He does is right and good.” Psalm 33:5 says, “He loves whatever is just and good.” And Job 34:12 says about God: “Truly, God will do no wrong. The Almighty will not twist justice.”

This is a characteristic God wants to shape in us: Psalm 106:3 says, “There is joy for those who deal justly with others and always do what is right.” Isaiah 56:1 says, “Be just and fair to all, do what is right and good.” God wants us to do the right thing in all our relationships, and sometimes its about restoring things to right.

I mean we go about making things right all the time, don’t we? You break your leg, you go to the hospital, get the bone set right, and after a couple of months of hobbling around, you start to walk normal again – right again. Every month you sweat it out trying to justify your checkbook with your bank account. And every couple of months we take our cars in for a tune-up so they’ll will run right. We’re used to living in a world where we’re trying to get things right and make things right. But we don’t always succeed.

In fact there is a deep cry in our hearts when we look at a world gone bad, and we say to ourselves, “Is there any hope, is there anyway we can fix this thing?” We live in a world where all sorts of things have gone wrong. Nations at war, marriages broken, people breaking the law – everybody doing what is right in their own eyes. Our time is not unlike the time when Jesus came among us. And when he came a new sense of hope sprung up everywhere he went. Why? Because he came to set things right. He didn’t just do the right things, he had a justice agenda – he went around righting wrongs. In Luke 4, Jesus unrolled the scroll of Isaiah and read these words: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he anointed me to bring Good News to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released, that the blind will see, that the oppressed will be set free, and that the time of the Lord’s favor has come.” Wherever Jesus went, he met an endless supply of people whose lives had gone wrong. Sick people, sad people, people in doubt, people in despair, people enslaved by sin, caught up in religion. And although Jesus healed some and freed others, his ultimate journey was to the cross to make us right with God. And somehow, God wants to shape his character – this realty of doing the right thing, treating people the right way, and setting the world to rights in us. A God-shaped life acts justly. But God would never be satisfied if this is all we were about. God was about so much more. To this characteristic of justice, God also wants us to be known for our mercy.

2. A God-shaped Life Loves mercy – As God shapes your character you will become a person marked by mercy This is the Hebrew word “Hesed” a word know very well by any Jewish person. There are three basic meanings applied to this word that always interact: “strength,” “steadfastness” and “love.” This word is often used of God in his relationship with Israel in referring to His covenant relationship with them as a God of “loving kindness.” It basically means that God will never give up on His relationship with Israel. But this loving kind disposition of God is not just about a relational obligation; it also carries the idea of generosity. He will be committed to Israel far beyond the rule of any law. And so this quality in God preserves His relationship. There is a sense of permanency to His commitment to loving His people that nothing they do wrong can change. So when we apply this quality to our relationships, this is what keeps us from condemning one another, it keeps us from giving up on one another. We will continue to be generous with our love. This is the concept behind the covenant of a marriage bond. And it’s why nothing can ever separate us from the love of God. And this quality was in Jesus. This is why he extended love to the lowly, the needy, the unlovable, the outcast. This is why He was condemned by the religious experts of the day who called him a friend of sinners. To them, Jesus said, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.' For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners." Matthew 9:12-14

Jesus is quoting the prophet Hosea (6:6), through who God said, “For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and in the acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings” The whole book of Hosea is an illustration of God’s mercy. God told Hosea to find an adulterous woman to be his wife. And Hosea did what God commanded and married Gomer. Yet, she continued to cheat on Hosea. In this story was a lesson for Israel. Gomer’s unfaithfulness was a living illustration of Israel’s unfaithfulness to God and Hosea’s continuing love and forgiveness of Gomer was a picture of God’s continuing mercy upon Israel. That’s what the Pharisees were to go and learn. That God is rich in mercy. He is strong, steadfast and generous in His mercy. And that’s what we are to learn from Jesus. Jesus was full of loving kindness and not afraid to show it. It’s that quality of Christ that kept him from giving up on anyone, even those who crucified him. And it’s a quality that God wants to shape in us. This is why in the love chapter, the final word on love is this: love never fails. This is why God doesn’t want us to be just better people, but new people. Because when left to ourselves, our love to easily gives up on people.

Well, there’s a third quality of a God shaped life that kind of wraps it all up for us: 3. A God-shaped Life Walks humbly As God shapes your character you will become a person who wants what God wants and you will want Him to get the glory through your life! The idea behind walking humbly with God is to make it your purpose to gain a close familiarity with God. It’s this whole idea of staying close to God’s heart. This is what is good, this is what is pleasing to Him. He wants us to stay close to Him, familiar with Him – His will and His ways. Because when we stray from God we tend to abuse justice and hurt people or we tend to overemphasize mercy to the point that we just tolerate any kind of wrong behavior and let people hurt themselves. But when we stay near the heart of God, He shapes our hearts. Walking humbly is really the how we can let God shape our inner person, to allow Him to shape us into a new kind of person.

I like how Erwin McManus writes about this. He says, “God created everything to be in proper relationship with Himself. He is the source of all that is good. It is good for everything and everyone to be in relationship with Him. For God to seek our good, He must seek our reconciliation to Himself. We were created and designed to be one with Him. When we are one with God, we find both wholeness and integrity. Integrity is born out of relationship with God and flows into our relationships with others. Integrity is the personification of truth. When we build our lives on truth, and live by that which we know to be true, we begin to live from the inside out.” (Uprising, page 71) This is how Jesus lived. He walked close to the Father. He walked humbly with God. He lived a God shaped life.

The Bible shows this clearly. In John 5:19 we read: So Jesus explained, “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself. He does only what he sees the Father doing. Whatever the Father does, the Son also does." And again in John 7:16-18, Jesus reveals how the Father has shaped his entire mission: So Jesus told them, “My message is not my own; it comes from God who sent me. Anyone who wants to do the will of God will know whether my teaching is from God or is merely my own. Those who speak for themselves want glory only for themselves, but a person who seeks to honor the one who sent him speaks truth, not lies.” The proof of a God shaped life is in who gets the credit for what you do. Do you live to get the credit, or does your life shine the spotlight on God?

You see, if you are living a God-shaped life, A God-Shaped Life Shines: When you are living a God shaped life others in your life will see that you chose to do the right thing regardless of your circumstance – and they will see you are about making things right.

1. What might your children see in you if you were always committed to doing the right thing in any circumstance? Your children are the front lines - what are they learning from you?

2. What might your family see in you if you always balanced doing what is right with loving mercy? Take a look at this clip from Cinderella Man, the story of a fighter who once had it all, lived in a good middle class home with all the nice things of life, but was now trying to make ends meet by taking any work he could get during the midst of the great depression. Watch now and see how this father does the right thing, teaches how to make things right, and yet shows loving kindness:

Scene from "Cinderella Man" Jim is greeted by his daughter Rosie, who tells him that, "Jay stole!" Jim is stunned at being told that his son might be guilty of theft, and he immediately turns to go into the house, followed by Rosie. She points at the table and says, "See, it's a salami!"

Mae, Jim's wife, says, "Young lady, your brother's in enough trouble without you telling on him! You understand?" Mae turns her attention to Jim, "It's from the butcher's and he won't say a word about it, will you Jay? Will you, Jay?!"

Jim takes a long look at his son, who will not meet his eyes, "Okay, pick it up and let's go." When his son does not move, Jim's voice takes on an icy tone, "Do not test me boy. Right now!"

Jay gets up, picks up the salami, and both head out the door to the butcher's shop. Inside, Jim makes Jay give the salami back and also apologize. They come out of the shop, and Jay says that one of his friends, "Had to go live in Delaware with his uncle." When Jim asks why, Jay says, "His parents didn't have enough money for them to eat."

The light dawns on Jim, and he now understands Jay's motivation. He tells Jay, "Yeah, well things ain't easy at the moment, Jay, you're right. There's a lot of people worse off than what we are. But just 'cause things ain't easy that don't give you an excuse to take what's not yours, does it? That's stealing, ain't it? We don't steal. No matter what happens, we don't steal."

Jim makes Jay promise that he won't do it again. Jim tells Jay, "And I promise you that I will never send you away."

Jay falls, sobbing into his father's arms. Jim holds him and says, "That's okay. You got a little scared, I understand."

That’s just a little picture of character. How’s your character?

3. What might need to change in you to have a heart that’s always bent on pleasing God?
Do you need to experience forgiveness from God – to let Jesus make you right with the Father? Maybe you’ve let your walk with God drift - maybe you’re not walking as close like you once were? Maybe you need to return to a walk with Jesus and let His unfailing, strong, unshakable love pierce your heart anew. Or maybe you just need to stop trying to better yourself, and start letting Jesus have your whole heart.

I close with this reminder from His Word. It’s part of Paul’s prayer for a group of Christ followers in Philippi. It’s my prayer for my heart and for our church, because only God can produce a God shaped-life in us: May you always be filled with the fruit of your salvation—the righteous character produced in your life by Jesus Christ — for this will bring much glory and praise to God. Philippians 1:11 (NLT)